matthew whit darby stopped his badly damaged car. his two passengers told police they got out, looked at the body, then jumped back into in the car while darby sped away. the next day, the two teenaged passengers turned themselves in. whit darby was arrested, telling police exactly what the two other teens said he would say, that he hit a deer. darby denied he was drinking or smoking marijuana. he and his lawyer and the two passengers aren't talking to cnn. darby hasn't entered a plea. so this was the route that your dad would walk every morning? >> yep, every morning. >> reporter: donny butts, johnny's only child, now walks this route to see the cross he laid at the spot where his dad died. it's been seven months. matthew whit darby is in jail charged with murder, but not with the added crime of hate. in this racially charged area of rural mississippi, confederate flags fly in front of homes just down the road from where johnny butts was killed. his son donny, his family, and many other blacks in this community say the police, the d

matthew whit darby is in jail charged with murder, but not with the added crime of hate.acially charged area of rural mississippi, confederate flags fly in front of homes just down the road from where johnny butts was killed. his son donny, his family, and many other blacks in this community say the police, the district attorney, the white law enforcement of panola county aren't investigating why johnny lee butts was killed. they say the motive was hate. >> they knew he was black. that was the only reason why they ran him over, because he was black. point-blank. >> reporter: the d.a. so far has said flat-out this was not a crime of race. >> well, what was it? i want to know what was it. if it wasn't racism. it was just hate. i don't understand. >> reporter: the district attorney in this case told cnn one reason a hate crime has been ruled out is that the boys in the car that morning could not see whether the walker, johnny butts, was black or white. but that is not true according to the statements given by one of the teens in that car. in grand jury testimony obtained by

matthew whit darby, no relation to the sheriff, guess on trial for murder, but not a hate crime, next this is a really stunning report there are so many inconsistencies here and what the police are saying. the mother of one of the teens in the car who killed the man on the side of the road, she said it was racially motivated. do we know if investigators even talked to her? >> from the records we have obtained, anderson, which include witnesses' list, she is not on any witness list. we have no transcript of any interview that was done with her. so despite that public assertion that she said look, this was racist and her son was involved, we don't believe that investigators ever went to find out what she was saying. she won't talk to us. basically, she has been telling people she is scared to speak out. >> and that second incident, do the police, the sheriff, darby investigators, do they try to do anything to find that jeep? >> it doesn't appear that they did anything at all. we're not even sure if the police believed these kids. here is what happened. an officer came out, write-up the